Middletown Mayor Addresses Decision Not To Spray For Mosquitoes

MIDDLETOWN, CT — Middletown Mayor Dan Drew is again urging residents not to panic amid recent reports of mosquitoes testing positive for Eastern Equine Encephalitis in Connecticut. Drew announced last week that the city would not be spraying for mosquitoes and said Thursday that he continues to get “questions and expressions of concern” about that decision since EEE has been in the news.

The state Department of Public Health confirmed earlier this week that an East Haddam resident is the third Connecticut resident to die from the EEE virus. The person, who was between 60 and 69 years of age, became ill during the second week of September and died the third week, according to officials. Two other Connecticut residents died from EEE this year, including a 77-year-old woman from East Lyme on Sept. 19. Another person, an Old Lyme Resident, died last week, according to state health officials.

“The best precaution available is to wear long sleeves and pants and to avoid swampy areas during dawn and dusk in warm weather,” Drew wrote in a post on Facebook Thursday evening. “This issue is far scarier in the media than in reality. It’s tragic that some people have passed but, given that there are 3.752 million people in Connecticut, EEE has a mortality rate of .000084% right now.

“You should take precautions if you’re in affected areas but you should not panic. To put this in perspective, Connecticut had 172 gun deaths in 2016, 78 flu deaths just as of May of this year with thousands more infected, and 260 motor vehicle deaths in 2017. That means that guns are approximately 57 times more likely to cause death than EEE. The flu is roughly 26 times more likely (before summer even begins), and a motor vehicle accident is nearly 87 times more likely to result in death.

“Should you take precautions as an individual? Of course. Should we spray poison or drastically change the way we live our lives? No.

“I understand the concern associated with this illness but the fear present is more a result of media reports and highway signs than any existential threat we face. Thanks.”